BPC Archives - Vortex Consulting

From guest authors Sven Wierzbicki and John Louw. The second in our blog series on “How to Start your SAP S/4HANA Journey.”

As discussed in the first chapter of this series, there are many ways to reach the goal of successfully deploying SAP S/4HANA in your enterprise. Today’s post will focus on identifying the right starting point in your Business Intelligence environment.

Let’s rewind a couple of years. You might recall SAP’s implied effort to “embrace divergence.” BusinessObjects (BOBJ), Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC), Business Configuration (BC), and Integrated Planning (IP) were just some of the new tools thrown at us. Now the fog has lifted and we are in front of a new maze: “in” or “on” HANA, embedded, hybrid, cloud-based. Allow us to offer guidance and a helping hand in sorting out this new mystery. It matters–a lot!

Photo credit: SAP

Think about your planning efforts to get to a budget, to the projected sales figures, or to other important KPIs within the enterprise. Some people love Excel, some hate it. Others cannot live without their cloud tools like Salesforce. And really no one should have to choose a tool that is not up to the task. Why does this matter? You can build the starting point of your S/4HANA journey around this thought!

Consider the following sequence that puts the focus on Business Intelligence first:

1) Upgrade SAP Business Warehouse (BW) – Assuming that you have an existing Business Warehouse environment, consider upgrading to BW on HANA (database upgrade only). It is a right first step into the new world of HANA. It allows your technical resources to understand the new capabilities of the database and builds a solid foundation for your business intelligence environment. Also, it can be done in 2-3 months with very limited impact on the business. All existing objects, like InfoCubes, providers, and queries, will still work.

2) Deploy SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) – Embrace the different facets of the BPC tool, either as an all-in for planning and consolidation, or any subset of it. Here’s a strong example: the embedded planning capabilities allow for utilizing the modern database capabilities of HANA.

3) Transition Business Warehouse Capabilities – Over a period of time, transition your BW InfoCubes, providers, etc. to the new HANA technology. This allows time to prepare your system for the next step of the journey.

4) Upgrade to BW/4HANA – Your BW is now ready to be upgraded from BW on HANA to BW/4HANA, allowing your enterprise to embrace the full capabilities of HANA.

5) Deploy and Connect SAP Analytics Cloud – Take the integration of all your planning capabilities to the next level. This will allow you to have each department working in their tool of choice and connect them into a real-time master plan.

Taking this multi-phased approach puts you on a strategic path toward a digital boardroom. It does not
dictate the pace of the operations going to S/4HANA. It can also be done in parallel to an overhaul of the operational SAP systems at any given stage of the road map as the ties between the ERP and the Business Warehouse stay intact:

R/3 to BW on HANA, or
R/3 to BW/4HANA, or
S/4 to BW on HANA, or
S/4 to BW/4HANA, or
S/4 with embedded BW

The choice is yours, and the pace is not externally dictated–a truly tailored approach with focus on the insights first!

In our next post, we’ll address the “Central Finance First” option, talking about a sidecar solution as the starting point. Click here to catch up on our first post in the series, “How to Start Your SAP S/4HANA Journey: Three Unique Approaches.” Stay tuned for our next chapter!

There are many variables when it comes to understanding SAP BPC and S/4HANA implementation options. Today’s blog post is from guest author Johannes Le Roux, an SAP HANA Architect at Infogility. Join us as he walks through the basics:

In 2015, SAP launched its latest data management solution, SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC). It was designed to operate seamlessly on SAP’s latest ERP platform, S/4HANA.

Before we delve into the options for SAP BPC and S/4HANA implementation, let’s quickly recap a few of the main benefits to this groundbreaking approach to data management:

Real-time data access
Fast data load time and overall processing
Changes are implemented to core data, ensuring all sourcing comes from a single, centralized data pool

Option 1: New Implementation

Whether your organization is running on SAP or another ERP, implementing a new instance on SAP S/4HANA is an enticing option. Making the move to SAP’s most modern platform allows you the opportunity to realign and optimize existing business processes. If you have highly complex customizations that were built in years past, it’s likely that we can streamline and simplify those setups in a modern platform. Creation of a new SAP environment provides an opportunity to purge outdated data and establish a clean and well-structured data foundation for forward movement and growth. This environment can be developed either on-premise or in the cloud, depending on the unique resources and needs of your business.

Option 2: Landscape Transformation

Landscape transformation is ideal for those organizations with an existing SAP landscape, or even multiple systems–whether distributed regionally or in one central location. Alternatively, it enables large organizations to extract specific entities or business processes from the larger environment and establish them in a standalone SAP S/4HANA setup. Outdated or overly complex business processes benefit from the simplification and development of a “clean slate.”

Option 3: System Conversion / Migration

Some customers seeking an SAP BPC and S/4 HANA implementation simply want to convert an existing SAP ERP system to SAP’s most modern platform. A system conversion, which establishes a new on-premise or cloud-based S/4HANA environment, is the ideal option for organizations in this position. Using SAP’s migration tools, business data and configuration are managed to ensure a seamless transition.

SAP BPC and S/4HANA Implementation Option 3: System conversion or migration from an existing ERP system

Option 4: Migration to New General Ledger (G/L)

Finally, there are businesses operating with a classic General Ledger that are ready to take advantage of the benefits offered by SAP S/4HANA Finance. This process may take place through the use of SAP’s General Ledger Migration Service or through the activation of a parallel ledger and document splitting strategy. A customized approach will ensure data streams and financial management functions remain in order throughout.

Initiating an SAP BPC and S/4HANA Implementation

Choosing to move forward with an SAP BPC and S/4HANA implementation is a strategic decision that will benefit your business. As technology and the business landscape continues to change, your ERP environment will be set up to outperform outdated systems. SAP has been a leader for decades, and with its latest launch of cutting edge ERP solutions, it has once again demonstrated that it will continue to be an industry leader for years to come.

Tag: BPC

How to Start your SAP S/4HANA Journey: Insight First